


The Soldier & The Seawolf & Their Pups

by Kamalaophelia



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Family Feels, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 04:13:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19077262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kamalaophelia/pseuds/Kamalaophelia
Summary: Collections of out of order short stories surrounding Bryce Cousland, Eleanour and their children.requests can always be made at: https://brycecousland.tumblr.com





	1. The Solder, The Seawolf and getting rid of (sexual) Tension

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Characters: Bryce and Eleanor  
> Ship: BrycexEleanor  
> Rating: implied smuttiness but no detail at all idek what rating that is
> 
> Setting: A few weeks after Bryce boarded the ship of Eleanor the tension between them reaches their peak.
> 
> Warnings: mentioned sexism

The Seawolf’s hands curled into the soldier’s collar, and with all the strength the raider queen could muster she half threw, half pushed him against the wooden column supporting the ceiling of her captain’s quarters. her brown eyes glaring into his blue ones. like he was the sea and she was the land… when it was the opposite. When it SHOULD be the opposite!

“You were holding back!” Eleanor hissed, her fists grabbing his shirt even tighter, so tight her hands shook from the tension. She didn’t even realize how close she was to him.

“You are STILL holding back,” she added as he let her manhandle him just like that. He should at least try to free himself, push her away. He should FIGHT her.

“I am… and I am not,” he answered, so calmly she wanted to scream at him. She felt like the stormy sea raging against coast cliffs. And she hated it… there was something inside her. Something burning, angry, thrashing… every time she looked at him it wanted to crawl out of her chest. And she was unable to name it… so she named it anger. Anger was easy. Anger she knew so well. And it was easy, especially when he gave her reasons like this.

Eleanor was about to open her mouth when he kept talking instead.

“For one…” oh, oh he started to grin, in that way that made her want to wipe it from his face. (With her face. NO.) “…I actually quite enjoy being pinned down by you.”

_Oh…_

Part of her wanted to instantly push herself away, and maybe turn away to calm her heart that did that horrible fluttering thing whenever he said something like that. She was no blushing maiden. She had seduced many sweet boys and girls when they had visited coast cities to restock. But… those had rarely been battle-hardened soldiers or lords. But people who wanted a fantasy for a night, being ravaged by the Seawolf…. no one wanted her to have a traitorous fluttering heart. SHE didn’t want to have a traitorous fluttering heart.

But she stayed where she was, raising her hands a bit higher, tightening Bryce’s collar around his neck.

“Stop with your **jokes**. I am no foolish little girl that would fall for them!”

“What jokes?” he asked instantly, blinking surprised in a way that made her nearly believe he was innocent. It was those damn eyes. She hated them…

“The… ” the compliments, the flirting…. but she didn’t dare to tell him.

“It doesn’t matter! Are you looking down at me because I am a woman? Is that why you hold back? Why you never truly spar with me? I have seen you on the battlefield!” Her voice raised now, not hissing.

“I saw you fighting too, usually your foes get their throats slit in bare seconds… and here I am, still talking. So you are holding back too,” he replied, firmer now. The innocent confusion wiped away, and it calmed her storm a bit. Knowing he took this seriously. She so feared not being taken seriously.

“It is sparing…”

“Exactly… my full strength is drawn when I fall into a rage, when I murder and maul… not when I spar. And it is the same for you.”

Her grip loosened a bit for a second, just like her expression softened a moment before returning to its intensity.

“When we both hold back, we should again be **equals**. So you ARE holding back even more!” her words were spoken with the sharpness of her blades. But they didn’t seem to reach their aim, they didn’t cut… The smile on Bryce’s features was not one of an offended man. It was so soft, gentle like she just had told him she loved him. Not that she did… no, no a raider had no room to love a proud, stupid, handsome landlubber.

“I see you as **my equal**. And yes… I hold back because of that. You are fast, you easily can kick my feet away from under me. You straddle me so often… but in that moment I could grab you, and we could continue wrestling. And… I do not want to do that with you. Not when people are watching and judging. Yes, maybe you being a woman plays into it. Because I can only win. You pinning me down? I get pats on my back because I lost but I also can get high-fives for you sitting in my lap…”

Eleanor tried to disrupt him more than once, but he just raised a hand and kept talking, calmly. And she didn’t know where she was between anger and embarrassment. Anger won out when she let go of him just to raise her hand, aiming for his cheek as it came down again, to have her wrist caught in his hand.

“…while if I win, people might say that men truly are stronger. There is still a power struggle between us. I accepted you as the captain of this ship. But you don’t accept that or truly believe I did. And so do your and my men.  
We fight with unfair odds, so yes. I am holding back. Because I do not want to add fuel to this fire.”

The tension in her arm loosened as he brought her hand towards his chest. A gesture that made it hard for her to stay focused. They were fighting, why was there gentleness involved?

“You speak like you are so sure you’d win and I’d end up pinned down under you.”

“You said it… we are equals… on some days I might win, not always... I want that tension between us, between your crew and my soldiers, to disappear before that. I want everyone to accept that this is your ship, and while I didn’t realize that at our first meeting, I do it since the very moment your blade was on my throat.”

The Seawolf still felt angry, but the hand holding onto him let go. Her anger was not directed towards him anymore, it was the situation, the world maybe. Always feeling like any sign of weakness might make people change their mind about her. Anything that was not like her father, the raider king, was weak in comparison. And he knew that too, people feared and respected the Seawolf. But the moment she stopped being the Seawolf and became a person, or worse, a woman, views would change.

“I don’t like it,” she said, quietly now, but exhaling.

“Me neither,” he answered, and still he held her hand against his chest. And only now she realized how close she was to him. Realized how his shirt had opened more under her hands, her eyes followed the curve of his collarbones as she felt the beating of his heart against her now flattening fingers that were so ready to slap and maul him just moments ago.  
And now? Now she felt weirdly calm. A calmness that made her heart beat faster. She knew this calm, it was in the eye of a storm.

“Nothing I ever told you was a joke, Eleanor.” He nearly whispered her name, and she could not remember if anyone ever said it like that. Like the first warm sunlight after the long and harsh winter. Like warm summer rain…

“I am the Seawolf…” she argued, weaker now.

“And who said wolves aren’t beautiful?” he asked in return, and leaned closer down to her, while she didn’t dare to look up. Didn’t dare to look into his eyes, they’d just bewitch her again.

“But a wolf that is not feared is not a wolf…”

“Wolves are very loving animals, they care for their pack, they sing to the moon, they find joy in things that are not just hunting… and none of those things make them less of a wolf.”

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Talking like you know me that well.” her voice had become so quiet she was surprised herself. Didn’t know she could sound like this, feel like this.

“I don’t, but I really want to get to know you, Eleanor. I want nothing more than that...” she took a deep breath, looking up to him, slowly until their eyes met once more. Nose tips maybe an inch apart now. His back still against the wood, it made her still feel like she had at least some power still.

A heartbeat passes, then another, and she exhales slowly. Leaning against him, her arm trapped between their bodies while the other just hung down.

“Hold me, soldier boy…” she whispered.

“Is that an order, captain?”

“Yes…”

And his arms wrapped carefully around her, letting go of her wrist. Holding her tightly against his form, and she closed her eyes, returning the motion.

People talked about sex after a fight… but this… this was different. Better than rolling in the sheets. It was a calmness, a softness she didn’t know she had in her. She hadn’t known she needed.

The feeling in her chest was still there, but not a thrashing demon anymore. Instead, like a fire that was gentle to the touch.

She once did have a lover that liked to read her love poems. Eleanor had rolled her eyes back then.  
But now? Now she felt like her mind sought out those horribly sappy metaphors itself.

“Bryce…” his name comes from her lips quietly, but it holds more meaning than she intended to show. Maybe she should not have waited for so long to call him by his name.

“Bryce… kiss me.”

“Is that an order?”

“No… I want you to… want…”

Oh, and he did want. His lips touching hers. So gentle it did barely count at first, sending waves of electricity down her form. To be kissed like she was precious like she was more than teeth and claws. And her lips opened for him, waiting as their kiss deepened. As thinking stopped and only feeling was taking over. The Sensation of his tongue against hers, their lips nipping, their bodies pressed together.  
The land and the sea, shaping one another since the time they were created to meet and love one another.

Maybe minutes or hours later, unable to break their touch, they were in her bed.  
Nothing mattered anymore. Just skin against skin. Tasting, feeling, and smelling. Who was on top, who was on the bottom? Their hands intertwined. And at some point, she did scream his name and made him moan hers, for the world to hear. Wordless breaks between reaching new heights ending up in gentle touches, kisses and then again passion that drowned them in one another.

It feels like an eternity had passed when the two finally were too exhausted to even think about moving anymore. Sweaty bodies curled into one another. Their hair a mess, but happy, so happy, and slowly returning to reality again.

Eleanor’s fingers did run over his scars, and with everyone, she found she hoped whoever had hurt this man had paid for it. Oh, she hoped for them. She’d do worse to them then they could even imagine in their worst nightmares.

“I am scared…” Bryce whispered after a quiet while. His voice shaking in a way that nearly startled her. And as she looked up from his scars into his eyes again, there were tears.

She could not remember when she had seen a man cry. (Many did when they begged for their life, but this was quite different from that.)

“Scared of what?” she asked, fingertips brushing over his cheek. Oh, how beautiful could a man be before it should be made illegal?

“Usually… this… satisfies me… usually, one night and the tension in my chest disappears., but…” he pulled her closer.

“It just became stronger… it’s was not just tension... this feeling, there is too much of it.”

A soft laugh leaves her, and she leans in to gently kiss the tip of his nose. The storm had cleared, and now everything was so easy to see and understand for her. He felt the same as her.

“We both still have time to figure it out…” Eleanor replied gently, with her fingers running through his hair, and his hands drawing images into his back, like an old lost language that one could not read but understood from the beginning of time.

“I will not be on your ship forever. I have a place to return to, people that wait for me. Promises I must keep. And I don’t want you to give up your life either…” Bryce said, and it pained her heart. She didn’t want to think about him leaving. Even with the disruption of his soldiers and he had brought to her ship. She liked that disruption.

“Tell me about what you look forward to… tell me about your lands, Teyrn Cousland…”

“Oh, Bann Mac Enraig… there is much to tell you about my lands. They are poor and covered in the blood of my people and the ones who had occupied us. Once Highever was one of the proudest and strongest Teyrnirs. But most of that was stolen from us…”

“You are horrible at advertising…” she disrupted him deadpan.

“Shush, I am not done… but the people who are still there are strong and loyal. The lands are fertile and there is so much to rebuild.  
The blood-drenched fields will bloom again, will be turned into fields to feed those children that will know of all the horrors we went through only from stories. They will listen to all of the destruction and pain and roll their eyes behind their teacher’s back because they’d rather run around and play… I want to watch Highever and Ferelden get there. I dream of the day all we went through will not even be something the next generation understands. That is my goal…”

Eleanor listened and watched as his gaze drifted away into the distance, and it felt like he could already see that future. She would like to, too. Building something… when the war is over she’ll simply become a raider. Not a protector or rebel soldier anymore, following in her father’s footsteps as she had always done. 

“That sounds… beautiful,” The Future, she never had thought about it, not like this. Others had thought about it for her. But that didn’t make where she was now a bad thing.

“Lets rest… we need to be strong for when we face our crew tomorrow…”

“Oh… if we are lucky they won’t be able to look into our eyes for a while…” words accomplished by that warm laughter he had, that made sunflowers bloom in her chest.


	2. The Seawolf receives a letter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> based on this part of their canon backstory: It ultimately took Bryce four months to claim his seat as Teyrn of Highever, and every day as he waited he sent a letter to Eleanor, some days Bryce even sent more than one. The two eventually met face to face once more at King Maric's formal coronation in the capital.

“She is smiling at a letter again…”  
“And GIGGLING. the SEAWOLF is giggling…”

The men were watching their captain from afar. Some of them had watched her grow up, old weather-beaten sailors, battle-hardened raiders. They had seen things that barely anyone could put into words. Dark ships from the lands beyond. Ships sailed by the dead. Storms that had come from nowhere and Seadragons. They had seen said GIGGLING woman kill and maim more brutally than even her father, the Storm Giant had. And still, seeing the young woman smile and bite her bottom lip whenever a letter arrived was probably the most shocking to them all.

“Our lady wed to the sea…”  
“Stolen away by a pretty boy from the land…” there was some sadness in their voice, but just as much fondness.   
The oldest steps away from the group and towards the woman. His hands placed on the railing beside her, looking over the sea towards the land.

“Does he make you happy?” he asked, and she finally looked up.  
“He doesn’t…” she said, and the older raider raised an eyebrow. “…but he helps me making myself happy.” She was not the kind of woman who believed a prince could arrive and make her happy. Happiness was something everyone built themselves. And sometimes one of the important parts of that building was another person, and sometimes not.

“…if you leave… don’t get yourself tamed, Seawolf,” the man gently warned and Eleanor threw her head back and laughed loud enough for it to echo across the ship.  
“Oh, please… like I’d be a woman to chose a man so weak he’d need to tame me to have me by his side…” she grinned, and her eyes sparkled like jewels. 

A heavy sigh left the old sailor before he chuckled too, shaking his head and patting her shoulder.  
“Well, captain. I’d never question your decisions. But know… if he ever makes you cry, we’ll beat him up for you.”

“No need, if that ever happened... I'll beat him up myself.”


	3. Bryce & Eleanor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How about a drabble where Bryce is out horseback riding with Eleanor? Except the two of them are riding one horse together with Eleanor sitting in front of him.  
> requested on brycecousland.tumblr.com

“I think it is supposed to the other way around…” Bryce complained his arms around her waist and his chin resting on her head.

“On MY horse I sit in front… you can be happy I decided to get you in the first place.” Eleanor replied with amused, warm laughter. Knowing her husband much too well. The way his arms were wrapped around her waist and his chin rested on her head.

“I didn’t exactly plan for that meeting to be so long…”

“You were in a tavern, honey…”

Bryce groaned, his head moving to her shoulder instead to nuzzle into the crook of her neck.

“Not my fault… they kept me for so long I couldn’t walk home or rent ahorse anymore and I had to stay somewhere…”

“Did you have fun?” Eleanor asked as they rode along the empty path under the starry sky.

“Mhm… yes, sung old songs and talked about the war… I mean the times we were able to forget all the horrors at camp. But it would have been better with you there.” and that was the truth to Bryce, emphasized by kisses against her neck. So soft they tickled and made his wife giggle again.

“I am still happy you had some fun,” she said, turning just far enough to press a kiss against his cheek.

“Thank you for getting me…”

“Of course… my bed feels empty without you in it, too, after all… our children were sad that you couldn’t tell them a goodnight story… they told me you make better voices than I…” the last part said in a playful pouting tone, this time it was Bryce who laughed.

The lights of the castle were getting closer, but for the time there were no sounds but the hooves on the path, the wind, and their beating hearts, so close to one another.

“We are very lucky, aren’t we?” Bryce finally asked, quiet but a smile on his face.

“The luckiest,” Eleanor answered just as quietly.


	4. Bryce & The sleepy Pup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Elissa doesn’t want to go to bed and Bryce makes animals talk.

Elissa was crying, weeping, kicking her tiny legs in an attempt to fight her mother’s arms off.

“NUH! NUH! NO BED! NUH! NOT sleepy!!!” she wailed with her tiny voice while at the same time struggling to keep her eyes open and rubbing them repeatedly, She was tired, clearly. It helped to amplify her meltdown, which happened whenever someone tried to make her do something she didn’t want. Eleanor would call it that “cursed Cousland determination” while knowing very well she was the same.

But now she did not curse about her husband’s bloodline, just sighed half defeated as she pushed the toddler on his lap.

“Please, Bryce, do your magic!” she said, and the dog plush Elissa loved so much it needed regular repairing against his chest. Elissa had calmed down just slightly in her Dad’s lap, she didn’t cry anymore but pouted and rubbed her tired eyes. Probably believing she had won, as she was not carried off anymore but in her Da’s lap.

Bryce took the plush and held it in front of his face by its arms, allowing him to move them easily.

 _“Hey… Hey Liss! BEEEST Friend Lissy!”_  he said, voice cartoonishly changed to fit the puppy plush.

“AH!” the girl made, startled and in awe equally when her friend talked. He didn’t always, just sometimes… usually around her Dad, which made her believe that her dad really could do magic as her mom said. (which had once lead to a kind of awkward conversation with a traveling templar)

“Puppy!” she added with sudden excitement, tiny hands reaching for the friend she had named rather creatively. Then again, no one was sure if it truly was named puppy. She used puppy as an exclamation for nearly everything that made her happy. Dogs? Puppy. Family? Friends? Puppies! Cute kittens? Puppies. Even dragons were puppies.

Probably something she caught from her father, that got childishly excited whenever his Mabaris had a litter of pups.

 _“Liss, Lissy… I am so… soooo sleepy!”_  the plush answered, sniffing slightly and rubbing its eyes with its arms.  
_“But… but I can’t sleep without my Lissy…”_  the voice became whinier, whimpering really like a dog, making Elissa clutch her chest and turn to her mum.

“… mommy… bed!” she said, and as Eleanor picked the now calmed down toddler up Bryce put the plushie into her arms, giving his little girl a kiss on the forehead.

“Good night, pup. I love you…”

“Nini, Papa… luv’ you too.”


	5. The Couslands and The Templar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The time Bryce nearly got thrown into a circle, OR how a Templar learned that toddlers were NOT good witnesses

“Your Lordship, I understand it is a heavy accusation, but your daughter herself told me that you practiced magic in front of her!” the Templar facing the Teyrn said, voice confident and strong. Already hearing the praise he'd get if he were able to stop the control of an apostate on a whole Teyrnir. Maybe he'd get a parade! … not that he did any of this for the validation. It was just an afterthought to doing what was just. At least, that was what the Templar told himself.

“I... Ser, I am certain there is a misunderstanding here...” Everyone, especially Bryce was confused. Only Elissa and the Templar did not share said confusion. Elissa now jumped up and down, smiling brightly and lifting her dog plush up to her father.

“Papa! Magic! Puppy!” she exclaimed, pushing her toy against Bryce's leg like it'd climb up to him.

Bryce's eyes widened.  
“Oh...” was all that came from him before Eleanor, that had only watched and listened until now started to laugh so much she needed to hold her stomach and bend over.

“OH. YES! Please, dear! Show the Templar your maaaaagic!” she somehow was able to bring out in her giggle fit.

The Templar now visibly confused, or irritated.

Bryce not seeing another choice let a sigh escape his lips, took the toy and held it in front of his face, wiggling its arms with his fingers.

“Hello! I am Puppy! Lissy's beeeeestest friend! The Teyrn juuust helps me to talk to my beestest friend! Not magic-magic~!!!” The Teyrn's voice comically changed, fitting as the voice for a children's loved toy.

Elissa started to pat against the Templar's leg armor, pointing up to Puppy.

“Magic! Magic!” she exclaimed with absolute pure happiness.

Everyone involved decided to never again talk about it... though sometimes Eleanor would break that promise to tease her partner with the time he made a stuffed animal talk to a Templar.


	6. Eleanor visits Bryce in his office (smut)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SHIP: Eleanor x Bryce  
> RATING: artsy smut IDK
> 
> at least a few years into their marriage

The way he called her name made shivers run down her spine, made her cling more to him, tightened around his length buried inside her. Made her hands pull more on his hair and gasp softly.   
He usually was the more vocal of them, praising her name like it was his religion, calling to her in all the terms he knew for her. His wife, his Eleanor, his Love. And she'd just kiss his lips as she rolled her hips, riding him on the expensive office chair while castle life kept moving in the courtyard and past the locked office door.

His hands squeezing her ass, massaging before again running up her back, towards her shoulders, pulling her down harder, draw himself deeper, harder into her. Eleanor's head rolled back and eyes closed as she moaned. And as she did he answered with a groan against her skin, kissing her throat, her shoulders, and collarbones. Soon to find her breasts, kissing and finally sucking the bud in the center into his mouth, rolling in between that so skilled tongue while one of those needy hands of his massaged her other.

Their bodies knew one another, she knew just how she needed to let her nails run over his back to make him shiver and draw in his breath. He knew just when to pull her down, push deeper into her and at what angle.   
They knew how to kiss one another. Lips meeting, colliding like the sea and the shore, with passion and never tired of one another. Licking deep into each other, tasting their moans until nothing mattered anymore. Nothing existed but the rhythm of their forms, and the overflowing desire and love they held for each other. Still wild and passionate like storms, just like those nights back on her ship when weeks of sexual tension had finally be resolved.

There was always a hint of possessiveness when they made love, a hint of their fighting spirit. Trying to prove something to the world, maybe the Maker himself. That no one else could hold a candle to them. That no one could replace Eleanor, and no one could replace Bryce. That it'd be like this for always.

He knew the way her thighs started to tense up, press more against his hips, how the muscles shivered and made her nearly stop in her movement as she was gasping and moaning, her back arching and head rolling back. So his hands moved to her hips, guided her, helped her to keep moving to accept the waves of the orgasm rolling over her, making her body shake, squeeze him and dig her nails into his skin. He found himself every time drawn into the moment and thanking his warrior and berserker training. Controlling himself so she could experience the moment of bliss. And only when she looked at him again, glassy eyes and whispered “Mine” he allowed himself to bury his face in her shoulder, desperately rocking into her gasping form to finally find relief with his arms wrapped tightly around her, holding her as close as possible.

For some time more she'd hold him, her lips kissing his forehead and her fingers running through his hair. Professions of love coming from both of them. Thanking each other for existing, for their shared love. The office filled just with love, all the important and big decisions to be made forgotten.


End file.
